Thario patted him on the back. “We’ll find her. I don’t know how, but we will.”
He closed his eyes, wishing he had the same faith Thario had. The door opened, and the detective stepped in.
“Okay, don’t get your hopes up, but we received a call from a woman who said her son was acting weird.”
Thario moved to the table and opened his laptop. “What’s his name?”
“Jenkins Drummond.”
Griz watched as Thario opened browser windows and started typing furiously. Thario paused and shook his head.
“The guy was arrested fifteen years ago, but the charges were dropped. He forced a teenager to go home with him. She got free, but it could have been much worse.”
Detective Baum moved to stand next to Thario and leaned in to read the screen. “How do you have access to this?”
Thario looked over his shoulder. “I’m special, I guess. I know it’s sensitive information, but sometimes people need to have information that isn’t available to the public at large.”
Baum shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’ve found some social media posts about him. Of course, it could be exaggerated, but people from his high school didn’t like him. Said he was creepy and not just his looks. He put a camera in the girls’ locker room and was expelled, no charges were filed.”
“Shit. I hate it when schools try to take care of problems on their own. Then we get perverts like this guy who are never caught.”
“When are you going to this guy’s house?” Griz asked.
“Soon. We have the SWAT team gathering. Officers are headed that way to watch the area.”
Griz nodded as he thought about what the SWAT team would be doing, how they would be preparing. Having a potential hostage would be tricky. The guy could kill Elowen before police could get to her. Stray bullets could take out hostage and perpetrator alike. He hated the odds.
“What are you thinking?” Thario asked.
“That having the SWAT team going in with guns blazing would be dangerous.”
Detective Baum ran a hand through his hair and nodded. “We’ve done things like had flowers delivered, pizza, and some other stuff. Maybe we could do that.”
“Send me in. I’ll deliver a pizza.”
“Hold on a minute, big guy. No one is going to believe you’re the pizza delivery guy.”
Griz shrugged. “They might. Pizza guys come in all shapes and sizes.”
“Few of them look like you, though. This kid has a young woman held at his house and we don’t think this is the first one. You show up with your big muscles and intense face, and he’s going to get spooked. We have some young guys on the force who look like they are eighteen and idiots. They can fool the guy into thinking they are lost. He can get a look into the house and no one will think he’s a plant.”
Griz blew out a breath. Maybe before he joined the SEAL team and gained weight, he could have played the part. But now, he was too old to play the part of lost pizza delivery guy.
“I’ll talk to the SWAT team leader. We’ll get some rookie in there to play the part.”
Griz had to be satisfied with the detective’s answer. It was the only way to get Elowen free, if that was where she was. If not, then they might never find her.
Chapter 34
From past experiences,Jenkins knew he had to pace himself. If he moved too fast, it wouldn’t last. He had to test the sedative to make sure she wasn’t getting too much. If the sedative knocked her out for too long, then it wasn’t any fun. He liked semi-conscious women. Based on how fast Elowen had fallen asleep, he knew he’d given her too much. She would sleep for hours now.
He huffed out a breath and headed upstairs. His mother was another story. He’d wanted her to sleep all day, so he’d loaded her down with the sedative. He watched her from across the room, waiting to see if her chest was rising and falling. Maybe he’d given her too much, and she’d passed away.
Everyone in town knew she’d been addicted to drugs at one point. Her dying from a drug overdose wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. He would do it next time. That would be much easier than strangling her. The drugs would be easily explained away, but marks around his mother’s neck would point the finger at him.
There was no reason to gawk at his mother. If shepassed away today because of the drugs, then whatever. He would get rid of the evidence connected to him.
